Multinational military exercises Agile Spirit 2021 have kicked off in Georgia.

In addition to Georgia and the US, servicemen from 13 NATO countries and partner states of the alliance will take part in them, including Germany, the UK, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and others. In total, more than 2,500 military personnel will be involved in the exercises.

The training exercises will be held from July 26 to August 6. These include command post training, field training and live-fire exercises.

In connection with Azerbaijan’s participation in the exercises, some Russian media wondered why Russia didn’t scold Baku for the NATO exercises.

The fact is that Moscow reacted quite loyally. Azerbaijan is a sovereign state, and Russia values ​​partner relations with it, said the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, commenting on Baku's participation in the exercises in Georgia, RBC reports.

“Azerbaijan is a sovereign state. We value our relations with Azerbaijan, these are partnership ties,” Peskov said.

He noted that the participation of Baku in military exercises in Georgia is another confirmation that NATO has its military infrastructure around the Russian borders.

Political analyst Aleksey Makarkin, explaining Peskov's soft answer, said that if Peskov were asked about Ukraine, the answer would be much harsher than in the case of Azerbaijan. Firstly, in Russia they never said that Russians and Azerbaijanis are one people. As is known, there is a completely different attitude to Ukraine. Secondly, there is a military-strategic point. Azerbaijan and Georgia are perceived as distant countries, and when it comes to Ukraine, one immediately remembers the possibility of placing NATO missiles in Kharkiv, starts calculating their arrival time to large cities, and so on.

Despite that Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev said that “we want to further expand the political dialogue and cooperation with NATO and highly appreciate the stable dialogue with NATO countries,” Baku has never aspired to join the alliance. Azerbaijan isn’t represented in the current exercises by military units. According to the press service of the Ministry of Defense, in line with the previously approved plan, two servicemen of the Azerbaijani army will attend the final part of the exercises August 1-6 as observers.

According to military expert Aleksey Ivanov, Azerbaijan is unlikely to plan to join NATO, but it certainly considers cooperation with the Alliance as one of the priority directions of foreign policy. In an interview with “MK,” the specialist told what Russia should expect from this cooperation.

“Azerbaijan is not Georgia, which looks into the mouth of anyone who is against Russia. They have no complaints against us, and moreover, Azerbaijan is actively buying Russian-made military equipment, and the most modern one... They feel like an independent country, which has the right to choose partners in the military sphere... They will probably accept some NATO maneuvers on their territory, they are generally now trying to promote the country in the international arena. However, the immediate threat to Russia from such maneuvers will be no more than from NATO exercises in the conditional Jordan. They arrive, exchange experience, and that’s all. Someone may not like it, but Baku has its right here,” the Russian expert said.

Moscow also understands the absence of any threat to Russia from cooperation between Baku and the Alliance. During the war, Russian expert Yevgeny Mikhailov said in a comment to the Azerbaijani media that “Baku has never tried to fall into the arms of NATO and the EU. Azerbaijan is ruled by President Ilham Aliyev, who respects Russian culture and develops the Russian language. More than 150,000 Russians live in Azerbaijan. Russians are giving their lives for Azerbaijan and the Russian Orthodox Church in this country has supported the government in its desire to return the occupied territories. However, many other confessions of multinational Azerbaijan did the same.”

Baku cooperates with NATO, but has never aspired to membership in this alliance, since it participates in the Non-Aligned Movement, Azerbaijani media report with reference to hurriyetdailynews.com.

The fact that cooperation between Azerbaijan and NATO is not directed against the third party has been talked about in Baku for more than one year. Several years ago, Azerbaijan’s representative to NATO Kamil Khasiev told reporters that the republic’s cooperation with NATO is not directed against any third country, including Russia. According to Khasiev, Azerbaijan is developing cooperation with NATO on a bilateral basis. Russia is developing the same bilateral cooperation with the alliance, which is welcomed by the Azerbaijani side. At the same time, he pointed out that the issue of the republic's joining NATO is not on the agenda.

In the context of anti-Azerbaijani propaganda, one can also consider the latest campaign unfolding around the alleged creation of a Turkic army.

Turkey and Azerbaijan will agree to create a joint Turkic army. The countries are already negotiating, "Sputnik Azerbaijan" reports with reference to the statement of Chairman of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (parliament) Mustafa Sentop.

Salih Yilmaz, a professor at Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University and head of the Ankara Institute for Russian Studies, said that Turkey is a NATO member, therefore it cannot create a unified army with Azerbaijan, which is not a member of the alliance.

Yilmaz noted that close cooperation between Ankara and Baku in the military sphere should not cause concern to anyone, including Russia. “That’s because the agreement on military cooperation between Russia and Armenia and other Central Asian countries is more advanced than [cooperation within] the agreement between Turkey and Azerbaijan. Russia has a military base in Gyumri (Armenia), on the border with Turkey,” the expert explained.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan and NATO continue cooperation, and the Alliance understands and accepts the balanced foreign policy line of Azerbaijan.

“We understand that Azerbaijan is pursuing a balanced foreign policy, the region is very complex. But we also noticed a positive impact on Azerbaijan of the relations that have developed in the West. We express our deep gratitude to Azerbaijan and for the support provided in Afghanistan. Azerbaijan has provided great assistance to NATO in the Afghan issue as a transit country, we highly appreciate this. Azerbaijani servicemen participated in NATO exercises. We have implemented certain projects through the NATO Trust Fund, these projects will contribute to the security of the citizens of Azerbaijan,” said NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the South Caucasus and Central Asia James Appathurai, who took part in a video format at the international conference “Azerbaijan's Contribution to the Euro-Atlantic Peace and Security” organized by the Latvian Embassy in Azerbaijan as NATO Coordinator in Azerbaijan in 2021-2022 jointly with the ADA University.

According to military expert Azad Isazade, accelerating the transition of the Azerbaijani army to NATO standards isn’t the main goal.

"The Azerbaijani army is strengthening military cooperation with Turkey, adopting the experience of its armed forces, building an army like the Turkish one. However, NATO standards are a broader concept. NATO standards mean about 300 volumes of documents defining standards in various areas from the size of shoe laces to the coloring of missiles, and hardly any of the NATO countries fully corresponds to them, because each case has its own specificity, geographic features, military traditions," Isazade said. He reminded that back in the 1990s, Azerbaijan abandoned the Soviet system of organizing the armed forces, and from the experience of Turkey and NATO standards adopted the "battalion - brigade - corps" structural model, which replaced the "regiment - division" model in the Azerbaijani army. "The special forces of Azerbaijan were trained according to the Turkish system. In the second Karabakh war, they demonstrated effective combat capability and played an important role in achieving military victory," he said, adding that the experience of the Turkish army was also used in the radio communications, artillery and aviation forces.

Negotiations in the Russia-NATO format have been held in Baku several times. The last of them took place in February 2020, when in Baku, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation Valery Gerasimov and Commander-in-Chief of the NATO Armed Forces Tod Wolters exchanged views on strategic stability and the situation in crisis regions, reads the message of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

In September 2017, a meeting was held in Baku between Head of the NATO Military Committee, Petr Pavel, and Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov. In 2018, Gerasimov met twice in the capital of Azerbaijan (in April and December) with Supreme Commander of the NATO Joint Forces Curtis Scaparrotti. In November 2019, Valery Gerasimov met in Baku with Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Sir Stuart Peach. In February 2020, Gerasimov held talks with Commander-in-chief of the NATO allied forces in Europe, General Tod Wolters.

This means that the participation of Azerbaijani military personnel in the Agile Spirit 2021 exercises is not a cause for concern for the Russian side.